Lost Playin' It: A Lost Planet Parody
by Quillon42
Summary: Just a goof in which I am playfully, tongue-in-cheekedly making fun of some of what I felt were this game's slight problem areas. Set in part to the tune of what else? Suzanne Vega's "Luka" the verse parts .


LOST PLAYIN' IT (A Lost Planet Parody)

_(Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed playing through this game. It's just that there were a few moments, or more than a few, in which I felt there was more frustration to be had than there should have been. I'm playfully, goodheartedly riffing on some of what I felt were the game's, for lack of a better term, shortcomings. Hope you enjoy this.)_

_(By the way, the song in between paragraphs, which is sung by Luka, is to be imagined to the tune of (what else?) Suzanne Vega's "Luka".)_

Know well, Player, that I am abundantly aware of the frustrations you have suffered throughout the duration of your stay in our frightening and frigid world. You may take a comfort, colder than the most distant tundras on our planet, that you are not the only one who has suffered extensive exasperation and has felt, more than a few times, limitlessly…

…lost.

"Luka, I've been firing at this oversized alien traffic signal for over thirty-five minutes now!

I've been, like friggin' running cross-country around it trying to put out all its eyes with bullets and rockets, and it just keeps growing the yellow eyes back!"

"Wayne, didn't Yuri tell you, like, a half hour ago! You don't stand a chance! You have to run past it, or around…just get away from it!"

The intrepid Eurasian warrior stopped scrambling around a second to consider the pirate leader's words again. He sniffed in irritation, looked at the gigantic snow worm looming several meters away. The humongous thing just looked so much like a subpart of this third mission, something he just felt so sure had to be taken care of.

He nodded into his intercom again. "I just thought it was one of those…reverse psychological jobs, like, Yuri saying 'You'll never make it!,' and it was supposed to spur me on to beating the thing!"

"WAYNE! It's usually the bad guys who do that sort of thing!"

The hero of the hinterlands paused again at this, picturing Yuri very clearly in his mind; _Can't tell whether he really is a good guy, though, after all._ (Of course, he wouldn't relate this to the Lady of the Lavender Locks on the other end.)

Luka continued, "There's like an evil mechanistic presence on the other side of the field, near some shells of buildings and such on the borders of the area! Check that out instead, and try not to get eaten by that huge…traffic signal in the meantime!"

Wayne managed one more glance at the towering yellow-eyed beast, then decided. "Yuri's gonna get it from me when I get back!"

His correspondent sighed, then she facepalmed. _Like Yuri's really to blame here,_ she thought. Wayne would fall prey to committing the same folly again and again in missions to come, dilly-dallying here and there and taking an hour and a half to reach a primary enemy whom he could have found in fifteen minutes, had he had his crap together.

_Ah well,_ Luka dismissed it, as she looked through a viewing device to scope out the stark, sterile gray walls of installations on the far side of this third area…installations appearing very much like so many other areas she had seen in her young life here on EDN-III…

_My name is Luka_

_I live in a bloated game_

_(With) unnecessary foes_

_Levels looking mostly the same_

_If you've been playing, an hour's lost_

_It was just ten minutes to the boss_

_Just don't ask me why it is_

_Just don't ask me why it is_

_Just don't ask me, why it is_

(Huff, huff, huff…)

It was all Wayne could do, as he hustled through the narrow hallway to the assigned checkpoint in his seventh foray, the one in which he had to catch up with and defeat the enemy caravan. It was all he could do to beat back the enemy mech pounding away at him from behind with all those lasers and missiles it had. He ejected from his own bot at the last second, just as it fully gave way and vomited out all the heat that it had left in it. The flash and smoke from the explosion would serve the hero well in covering his escape, and indeed he had harmonized just in time the energy from the husk of the large metallic humanoid form that carried him here. Wayne pushed through and across the checkpoint line, instants later breathing an enormous sigh of relief at the realization that his pursuer had miraculously fallen back.

"Wayne! It's so good you made it through…" Luka chirped ever so cheerily, as she strolled in sprightly behind the battered warrior.

(Huff…huff…) "WHAT THE HELL?!" He almost fell over at…just seeing her here. "How did you…how…"

"You cleared the way for me—for all of us!" The girl maintained a grin as she talked which could not be suppressed under any circumstance. There was just no getting her down…even, apparently, after her…following the hero through a battlefield full of enemy personnel?

Wayne couldn't say anything to this, so Luka added, "Yeah! You rid us of the whole caravan back there! Good job!"

"Umm…erm, I really just…kinda sorta ran through it…past it here and there…I mean, yeah, I did take out some purple laser guys on foot, and like, limply threw a grenade at one of the mounted guys when it was too close…but…I didn't…"

Luka said nothing to this, but just patted the man pertly on the shoulder and gave him an even more pert smile.

Her eyes then widened, then brightened up as she saw her brother running toward them.

"RICK!..."

As Luka was reunited with her perpetually be-goggled sibling, Wayne was just left to stand there idiotically, the hero still wondering how the hell his lovely purple pirate compatriot managed to just waltz in behind him after he barely survived straggling past the caravan…

_I guess I'm pretty lonely_

_Never seen Rick's eyes before_

_Maybe it's just because I'm lazy_

_As I skip to the middle of the board_

_You only shoot, till come home the cows_

_At checkpoints I'm there, you don't ask how_

_Just lost interest anymore_

_Just lost interest anymore_

_(You) just lost interest, anymore_

Occasions for vexation were not lacking for Wayne in the near future, either, my fond Player, as he made his foray into the ninth of missions for Rick, myself, and our fellow "ice pirates" (and yes, we have prided on calling ourselves by such a title, as we are confident and sure that no other ragtag cadre has ever gone by such a name). I found him straggling along the side of a small mountain, he seeming ever so proud to have commandeered a missile launcher and firing away at scads of Nevec drones, this after taking laser after laser from a mech hunched on the top of a watchtower for about fifty-plus minutes. My radio was conked out for a good three-quarters of an hour, so neither I nor my brother could guide him. Eventually, though, we got through to a guy who was a bit less than a happy Capcomverse camper:

"What are you still doing, tooling around on the surface like you are?"

"Luka!...I've been trying to reach you all this time. It took almost an hour, and several pints of blood…er, harmonies of heat energy…but I managed to take out most of the men and machines up around here. I was told earlier to find a way underground…I think if I can find some way to open this huge door, in the side of this hill…"

"WAYNE! Damn it! You didn't have to kill ANY of those people or machines! All you had to do was fight your way to the end of the first highway you were on, then drop down and go BEHIND the lava river! Yeah, sure…you might have run into some enemy suits over there too…but at least it would have been a lot less…well, you're gonna be running into them now, I suppose…"

"AhhhhhHHHHHH!" the hinterland hero spat in frustration. A pause pregnant with fluster; then: "Don't I get ANYTHING from having fought as I did just now?!"

"Well…there might be some…bonus coins for you to shoot and stuff…"

"Bonu…I'm doing all I can here not to completely BREAK MY ASS in this frigid cold, dodging lasers, rockets and crap, and you're giving me something about BONUS COINS as a consolation prize?

"I mean, Christ…at least give me hostages or something I can rescue! See if I can somehow friggin…harmonize my father back from the dead! Hell…I'm gonna go see if I can blast the door open here, behind the two once-manned missile launchers, and go my own effin' way…door looks like something out of _Ghosts n' Goblins_…waiting for an effin' key to fall out of the sky…"

And so Wayne went on and on, bleating, cursing, progressively making less and less sense.

Player, I feel deeply for your loss as well, as it has been your time which was sacrificed in addition to Wayne's. If only the path were more clear on EDN-III…

…I'm sure the sketchy save system, which allows you to continue mid-mission another day—on days when the game feels like letting you do so—does not offer much solace either. Goodness knows that Wayne, Rick, and I could stand to "save" our strife for another time…

_Yes I think you'll be okay, (though you're)_

_Walking in the wrong 'rection_

_Nevec mech standing, in your way_

_Didn't need to 'stroy it, anyway_

_If you've been 'peatin' (the) next few waves_

_There's wonky-ass midlevel saves_

_Just another couple hours_

_Just another couple hours_

_Just another, couple hours_

Though, Player, you don't know how it is between Wayne's missions…the things he gripes about, there's certainly no need for a "Director's Cut" for this title…(yes, there was a "Colonies"…this amnesiac prat has enough complaints to FILL UP an entire colony…

"Luka, it's like, I'm in love with this other VSer…but her name's Basil. Friggin' _Basil._ I feel like I'm in love with a guy, and I'm straighter than one of those heat station rods when they shoot up…boy, though, do I ever 'shoot up' when she comes around…she's effin' 'Basil,' though…"

"WAYNE!"

"And then, like, the guy who killed my father has these like tacky temple pigtails, and the pointiest-ass nose! And Isenberg looks like a retard Tarantino…why couldn't _cool_ people have killed my father?!

"I'd have been better off with that Green Grub thing having definitively offed him anyway…'least I could have worked some Moby Dick angle with that and stuck with it for the duration…maybe have called him 'Moby Dongo,' like that other enemy I've encountered around here…"

_Yeah, because he's not the 'dick' after all, between the two of you, Wayne._

_My name is Luka_

_(My) favorite line is whining "Wayne!"_

_Padded game to padded room_

_Missions making players insane_

_If I hear something late at night_

_A disc bein' broken out of spite_

_I won't ask you what it was_

_I won't ask you what it was_

_I won't ask you, what it was_

_You try till you die a trillion times_

_After that, you don't ask why_

_Just don't play it anymore_

_Just don't play it anymore_

_(You) just don't play it, anymore_

"And speaking of piece of crap Tarantino, why is my name Wayne, and then my father's name was Gale? Like, Wayne Gale, the guy Robert Downey played in _Natural Born Killers_?

"And then Downey became Iron Man after that! IRON MAN! I'M the one who should be Iron Man, what with all the VSes I've gone through in trying to save all your asses on this iceball…"

You see, Player? I wish he'd just revert to being a permanent amnesiac.


End file.
